born in Israel, 1977
lives and works in Tel Aviv

Lihi Chen creates a deceptive home-like space by using and treating readymades (objects she finds, collects or owns) and by handicraft that poses as readymade. The viewer is enchanted by their beauty for several moments, before sensing the foreignness in the familiar situation and the tension created between the real object and the "artistic" object, which Chen creates herself.

Chen combines readymade objects and objects that are the product of handiwork - sometimes handiwork that is learned especially for creating the displayed objects (macramé, for example) and which faces the danger of extinction in a world in which it is possible to purchase everything readymade. By placing them side by side, Chen makes the reason for the functionality of the everyday objects she uses irrelevant. She detaches them from their surroundings and from the effects of gravity and weather conditions, and dedicates them to the service of art.